Method for fabricating a solar module of rear contact solar cells using linear ribbon-type connector strips and respective solar module

ABSTRACT

A solar module and a method for fabricating a solar module comprising a plurality of rear contact solar cells are described. Rear contact solar cells (1) are provided with a large size of e.g. 156×156 mm2. Soldering pad arrangements (13, 15) applied on emitter contacts (5) and base contacts (7) are provided with one or more soldering pads (9, 11) arranged linearly. The soldering pad arrangements (13, 15) are arranged asymmetrically with respect to a longitudinal axis (17). Each solar cell (1) is then separated into first and second cell portions (19, 21) along a line (23) perpendicular to the longitudinal axis (17). Due to such cell separation and the asymmetrical design of the soldering pad arrangements (13, 15), the first and second cell portions (19, 21) may then be arranged alternately along a line with each second cell portion (21) arranged in a 180°-orientation with respect to the first cell portions (19) and such that emitter soldering pad arrangements (13) of a first cell portion (19) are aligned with base soldering pad arrangements (15) of neighboring second cell portions (21), and vice versa. Simple linear ribbon-type connector strips (25) may be used for interconnecting the cell portions (19, 21) by soldering onto the underlying aligned emitter and base soldering pad arrangements (13, 15). The interconnection approach enables using standard ribbon-type connector strips (25) while reducing any bow as well as reducing series resistance losses.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Divisional of copending application Ser. No.14/422,131, filed on Feb. 17, 2015, which is the National Phase of PCTInternational Application No. PCT/IB2013/001964, filed on Sep. 10, 2013,which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 61/699,584, filed on Sep. 11, 2012 and under 35 U.S.C.119(a) to Patent Application No. 1216209.5, filed in the United Kingdomof Great Britain on Sep. 11, 2012, all of which are hereby expresslyincorporated by reference into the present application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method for fabricating a solar moduleof rear contact solar cell solar cells, particularly of metalwrap-through (MWT) solar cells, and to a corresponding solar module.

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

Solar cells are used to convert sunlight into electricity using aphotovoltaic effect. A general object is to achieve high conversionefficiency balanced by a need for low production costs.

In a solar cell, emitter regions and base regions are comprised in asemiconductor substrate and a junction between these oppositely dopedregions serves for separating light-generated charge couples. Therein,an emitter region comprises one of n-type and p-type doping whereas abase region comprises the opposite doping type.

In conventional solar cells, the emitter region is typically arranged ata top surface directed towards the impinging light and the base regionis arranged at the opposite rear surface of the semiconductor substrate.Accordingly, emitter contacts contacting the emitter region are arrangedon the front side and base contacts contacting the base region arearranged on the rear side of the semiconductor substrate.

Novel cell designs have been developed wherein both contact types arearranged on a rear surface of the semiconductor substrate. Such solarcells are typically referred to as rear contact solar cells.

One type of rear contact solar cells which will be mainly discussedherein is the metal wrap-through (MWT) solar cell design in which anemitter region is formed at the front side of the semiconductorsubstrate and small metal fingers are arranged on this front side toform emitter contacts. However, in contrast to conventional solar cells,these small metal fingers do not lead to larger fingers, arrangedperpendicular to the small fingers and typically referred to as busbars.Instead, these small fingers lead to through-holes generated all overthe area of the semiconductor substrate. These through-holes are filledwith metal thereby connecting the small front side fingers with anemitter contact region arranged on the rear surface of the semiconductorsubstrate. Accordingly, the MWT-cell may have both contact types on therear surface such that no light-shading busbars are needed on the frontside.

On each of the emitter contacts and base contacts on the rear sidesurface, soldering pad arrangements may be applied. These soldering padarrangements may comprise one or more soldering pads made with asolderable material such as e.g. silver. On top of such soldering pads,interconnecting structures may be soldered for interconnectingneighboring solar cells thereby forming interconnected strings of solarcells which may then be used for finally forming a solar module.

Several concepts and interconnection schemes have been developed forelectrically interconnecting a plurality of rear contact solar cells.General requirements to be fulfilled by such approaches and schemes arethat no short-circuits shall occur between emitter regions and baseregions via the applied interconnection structures. Furthermore, theinterconnecting structures shall be easy to be applied to the solderingpad arrangements without significant risk of damaging the solar cell bythe interconnection procedure. Furthermore, processing steps andmaterials used for interconnecting solar cells to a string should be assimple and cheap as possible.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention enable to fulfill theabove-mentioned requirements in an advantageous manner.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a method forfabricating a solar module is proposed. The method starts with providinga plurality of rear contact solar cells having emitter contacts and basecontacts on a rear surface of a semiconductor substrate and solderingpad arrangements applied on emitter contacts and on base contacts. Eachsoldering pad arrangement comprises one or more soldering pads arrangedlinearly. The soldering pad arrangements are arranged on the rearsurface of the semiconductor substrate asymmetrically with respect to alongitudinal axis of the semiconductor substrate. As will become clearerfurther below, such asymmetrical arrangement of the soldering padarrangements may be seen as an important idea for the inventive concept.The longitudinal axis of the semiconductor substrate may be an axiswhich extends through a center of the semiconductor substrate and whichmay be preferably parallel to or at least not crossing the linearextension of the soldering pad arrangements.

After having prepared or provided such specifically designed rearcontact solar cells, each of the solar cells is separated into first andsecond cell portions along a line perpendicular to the longitudinal axisof the semiconductor substrate.

Subsequently, the plurality of first and second cell portions of therear contact solar cells is arranged alternately along a line such thatthe second cell portions are arranged in a 180°-orientation with respectto the first cell portions and such that soldering pad arrangements ofemitter contacts and of base contacts of first cell portions are alignedwith soldering pad arrangements of base contacts and emitter contacts ofsecond cell portions, respectively. In other words, after separatingeach solar cell into two portions, every second cell portion is rotatedby 180° and the cell portions are then arranged along a line.

Due to the asymmetry of the arrangement of the soldering padarrangements on the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate, thefirst cell portions and the rotated second cell portions may be arrangedsuch that each soldering pad arrangement applied on top of emittercontacts of a first cell portion is linearly aligned with an associatedsoldering pad arrangement applied on base contacts of a neighboringsecond cell portion. Similarly, each soldering pad arrangement appliedon base contacts of the first cell portion may be linearly aligned withan associated soldering pad arrangement applied on emitter contacts of asecond cell portion neighboring on the other side.

Finally, the plurality of first and second cell portions is electricallyconnected in series. For this purpose, a linear ribbon-type connectorstrip is arranged on top of a linear soldering pad arrangement of anemitter contact of each first cell portion and on top of an alignedlinear soldering pad arrangement of a base contact of a second cellportion neighboring the respective first cell portion on one side.Furthermore, a linear ribbon-type connector strip is arranged on top ofa linear soldering pad arrangement of a base contact of the respectivefirst cell portion and on top of an aligned linear soldering padarrangement of an emitter contact of a second cell portion neighboringthe respective first cell portion on an opposite side.

Finally, the connector strips are electrically connected to theunderlying soldering pad arrangements.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, a solar module isproposed. The solar module may be fabricated by the above-describedmethod. The solar module comprises a plurality of first and second cellportions of rear contact solar cells arranged along a longitudinal axis.Each of the first and second cell portions comprises soldering padarrangements on top of each of emitter contacts and base contacts whichsoldering pad arrangements each comprise one or more soldering padsarranged linearly. The soldering pad arrangements are arranged on therear side of the semiconductor substrate asymmetrically with respect toa longitudinal axis of the semiconductor substrate. The plurality offirst and second cell portions of the rear contact solar cells arearranged alternately along a line such that the second cell portions arearranged in a 180°-orientation with respect to the first cell portionsand such that soldering pad arrangements of emitter contacts and of basecontacts of the first cell portions are aligned with soldering padarrangements of base contacts and of emitter contacts of the second cellportions, respectively. The plurality of first and second cell portionsof the rear contact solar cells are connected in series by linearribbon-type connector strips each being arranged on top of a linearsoldering pad arrangement of an emitter contact of each first cellportion and on top of an aligned linear soldering pad arrangement of abase contact of a second cell portion neighboring the respective firstcell portion on one side and by linear ribbon-type connector strips eachbeing arranged on top of a linear soldering pad arrangement of a basecontact of the respective first cell portion and on top of an alignedlinear soldering pad arrangement of an emitter contact of a second cellportion neighboring the respective first cell portion on an oppositeside.

As will become apparent in more details further below, the above aspectsof the present invention may be understood as relying on the followingideas and observations:

In prior approaches and schemes for interconnecting rear contact solarcells for fabricating a solar module, the requirement of avoidingshort-circuits and of easy and cheap interconnection techniques havebeen fulfilled in various ways.

For example, complex metal interconnection structures have been providedby printing metal pastes onto additional substrates such as flexiblefoils and subsequently applying these additional substrates on top ofthe semiconductor substrate for interconnecting the emitter and basecontacts of neighboring solar cells in a suitable manner. However, suchapproach requires the provision of additional substrates for carryingthe printed metal structures and furthermore requires substantialefforts and costs for printing the metal structures onto suchsubstrates.

In an alternative approach, ribbon-type connector strips have been usedfor interconnecting neighboring solar cells. However, in such approach,either no simple linear ribbon-type connector strips but connectorstrips with a complex shape had to be used or additional insulatinglayers had to be interposed between each of the connector strips andunderlying emitter and base contacts for preventing localshort-circuits.

Additionally, particularly in case of large solar cells, soldering aribbon-type connector strip to soldering pad arrangements on asemiconductor substrate may result in significant bowing of thesemiconductor substrate due to the differing thermal expansioncoefficients of the material of the connector strip and the material ofthe semiconductor substrate. Such bowing may result in reduced yield ofthe fabrication process.

According to aspects of the present invention, a rear contact solar cellmay be provided in a large size. Preparing solar cells with large sizeis more efficient than preparing such solar cells with smaller sizes.For example, at the moment, wafer-based solar cells are typicallyprepared with sizes of 156×156 mm². Such large sized rear contact solarcells are provided with specific soldering pad arrangements wherein eachsoldering pad arrangement comprises one or more soldering pads and has alinear shape. The soldering pad arrangements are provided on the rearside of the semiconductor substrate such as to be asymmetrical withrespect to a longitudinal axis of the semiconductor substrate.Specifically, the soldering pad arrangements are provided in a schemesuch that, when arranging a first solar cell next to a second solar cellin a 180°-orientation, the linear soldering pad arrangement of one type,i.e. contacting emitter contacts or base contacts, of the first cell islinearly aligned with an associated soldering pad arrangement of theother type on the second cell. Due to such specific design of thesoldering pad arrangements, each solar cell may then be separated intofirst and second cell portions by cutting e.g. along a lineperpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the semiconductor substrateand, subsequently, these first and second cell portions may be arrangedalternately along a line with each second cell portion being arranged at180°-orientation with respect to first cell portions. Finally, the firstand second cell portions may be interconnected using conventional linearribbon-type connector strips applied on top of a linear soldering padarrangement of a first type on a first cell portion and an alignedlinear soldering pad arrangement of an opposite second type on aneighboring second cell portion. Due to separating the large sized rearcontact solar cell before interconnection, shorter ribbon-type connectorstrips may be used resulting in reduced bow.

Accordingly, the approach presented herein allows using simple linearribbon-type connector strips for interconnecting rear contact solarcells and at the same time prevents excessive bowing of thesemiconductor substrates upon interconnection and, furthermore, preventsany necessity for insulation layers interposed between connector stripsand contacts.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, no insulation layeris interposed between each of the connector strips and the emitter andbase contacts. The presented interconnection concept allows preventingshort-circuits without needing any insulation layer between theconnector strips and the underlying surface of the semiconductorsubstrate. Accordingly, additional efforts and costs for providing suchinsulation layers may be prevented.

According to another embodiment of the invention, before separating arear contact solar cell, the soldering pad arrangement of an emittercontact continuously extends from a first end arranged close to a firstedge of the semiconductor substrate via a center region of thesemiconductor substrate to a second end arranged close to a second edgeof the semiconductor substrate, wherein the first end and the second endare spaced apart from the first edge and the second edge, respectively,by between 2 and 48%, preferably between 4 and 20% of the distancebetween the first and second edges. Similarly, in the finalized solarmodule, i.e. after separating the rear contact solar cell into first andsecond portions, the soldering pad arrangement of an emitter contactcontinuously extends from a first end arranged close but spaced to afirst edge of a cell portion to a second end arranged at an oppositesecond edge of the cell portion, wherein the first end is spaced apartfrom the first edge by between 4 and 96%, preferably between 8 and 40°of the distance between the first and second edges.

In other words, the design of the soldering pad arrangements applied toemitter contacts may be chosen such that, before separating the solarcell into two portions, the soldering pad arrangements may extend closeto but spaced apart from opposite edges of the semiconductor substrate,i.e. there remains at least a small gap between an end of a solderingpad arrangement and a neighboring edge of the semiconductor substrate.This gap may serve for transmitting electrical currents from baseregions arranged on one side of the emitter soldering pad arrangement tobase regions arranged on an opposite side of this emitter soldering padarrangement. The extension of the emitter soldering pad arrangement onthe rear surface of an MWT solar cell typically strongly depends on thedesign of the front side emitter contacts and on the arrangements ofthrough-holes for interconnecting the front side emitter contacts withthe rear side emitter soldering pad arrangement. In an extreme design,the through-holes could be arranged only close to the centre of solarcell substrate such that the emitter soldering pad arrangement may bearranged only in a limited region near to the centre of the substrateand a gap between such soldering pad arrangement and an edge of thesubstrate may be up to 48% of the entire substrate width. Generally, theshorter the emitter soldering pad arrangements is and, thus, the largerthe gap to the substrate edge is the smaller a series resistance is forelectrical currents in the base to flow from a base region on theopposite side of the emitter soldering pad arrangement towards acollecting base soldering pad arrangement. However, as short emittersoldering pad arrangements may be only achieved in combination withlonger emitter contact fingers on the front side of the solar cellsubstrate, such longer emitter contact fingers possibly resulting inincreased series resistance, a trade-off may have to be found withemitter soldering pad arrangements leaving a gap to a substrate edgewith gap dimensions of 4-20% of the cell substrate width.

However, as the emitter soldering pad arrangement extends continuouslyvia the center region of the semiconductor substrate and thesemiconductor substrate will be separated into two portions by cuttingthrough this center region, in the resulting first and second cellportions, the emitter soldering pad arrangement will reach directly upto the edge on one side of the cell portions while leaving a gap to theedge on the other side of the cell portions. Due to such design of thesoldering pad arrangements on the cell portions, the cell portions maybe interconnected with each other without needing any insulation layersfor preventing short-circuits.

Current collection from base regions towards a base solderingarrangement may be further improved by providing additional metalfingers extending from a soldering pad arrangement of a base contactarranged on one side of the continuous soldering pad arrangement of anemitter contact via the gap between the continuous soldering padarrangement of the emitter contact and the edge to a region at anopposite side of the continuous soldering pad arrangement of the emittercontact.

The proposed fabrication method and solar module may be particularlybeneficial when applied to rear contact solar cells having a square sizeof more than 100×100 mm², particularly a size of 156×156 mm², whichmeans that the separated first and second cell portions are rectangularand have a size of preferably more than 50×100 mm². Particularly forsuch large size solar cells, the step of separating the solar cell intofirst and second cell portions and then specifically orientating andaligning these first and second cell portions is beneficial as withoutsuch process step, excessive bowing of the semiconductor substrate uponsoldering the ribbon-type connector strips to the soldering padarrangements could significantly reduce fabrication yield.

In order to separate the rear contact solar cells into first and secondcell portions, a linear trench may be laser-scribed into thesemiconductor substrate and subsequently the semiconductor substrate maybe mechanically broken along this trench. While such separation processmay be easily realized for industrial scale production, other methodsfor separating the rear contact solar cell into halves may also beapplied.

It may be noted that possible features and advantages of embodiments ofthe present invention are described herein with respect to the proposedfabrication method or with respect to the proposed solar module. Oneskilled in the art will recognize that the various features may besuitably combined or exchanged and features of the fabrication methodmay be realized in a corresponding manner in the solar module and viceversa in order to implement further advantageous embodiments andpossibly realize synergy effects.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following, features and advantages of embodiments of the presentinvention will be described with respect to the enclosed drawings.However, neither the drawings nor the description shall be interpretedas limiting the invention.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show top views on a rear side surface of rear contactsolar cells which may be used for fabrication methods and solar modulesaccording to embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 show a top view onto a rear side surface of specifically orientedcell portions for a solar module to be fabricated according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a top view on a rear side surface of interconnected solarcells of a solar module according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIGS. 5 and 6 show top views on a rear side surface of cell portions tobe used for a fabrication method and a solar module according toalternative embodiments of the present invention.

The figures are only schematically and not to scale. Same or similarfeatures are designated with same reference signs throughout thefigures.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of a fabrication method and a solar module according to thepresent invention shall be described in the following with regard to anexemplary embodiment of metal wrap-through (MWT) solar cells. However,the proposed method and solar module may also be applied to other rearcontact solar cells such as e.g. emitter wrap-through (EWT) solar cells,interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar cells, etc.

Various techniques and approaches for fabricating MWT solar cells andinterconnecting a plurality of such MWT solar cells for fabricating asolar module have been developed. An overview may be found for examplein Florian Clement: “Die Metal Wrap Through Solarzelle—Entwicklungund—Charakterisierung” (electronically published onhttp://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/6832/).

One of the main problems of state-of-the-art MWT solar cell technologyis the complexity and cost of manufacturing a module. Frequently,additional foils carrying complex patterns of printed metal structuresthereon are used for interconnecting neighboring solar cells within asolar module. For conventional ribbon-type interconnection, eitheradditional process steps such as application of insulating layers haveto be applied or specific non-linear ribbons have to be used or anamount of ribbons for interconnecting emitter and base contacts isuneven. While applying additional insulating layers or using complexshaped ribbon-type interconnectors may add to processing complexity andcosts, the provision of an uneven number of ribbons interconnectingemitter and base contacts may result in non-homogeneous distribution ofelectrical current flow within the solar cell, finally resulting inreduced solar cell efficiency.

Furthermore, while using ribbon-type connector strips forinterconnecting solar cells in a module in principle may include manyadvantages like using well-established technology for soldering suchconnector strips to soldering pads of the solar cell, cheap availabilityof simple connector strips, etc., using ribbon-type connector strips onrear contact solar cells of a large size such as the currently commonstandard size of 156 mm×156 mm may result in tremendous bow induced bythe ribbons. The metal material of the ribbons and the semiconductormaterial of the solar cell significantly differ in their thermalexpansion coefficient. During a soldering process, temperatures ofaround 200° C. may be reached, resulting in thermally induced stresswhen cooling down. Due to such mechanical stress, the semiconductorsubstrate may significantly bend to a concave form. The induced bowingis proportional, inter alia, to the length of the ribbon-type connectorstrips, their cross-section and to a contact area between the strips andthe solar cell. The induced bowing may be mainly responsible formechanical yield losses during solar module fabrication. For example, instandard size solar cells of 156×156 mm², using ribbon-type connectorstrips of dimensions of 2 mm×0.1 mm may result in an excessive bow ofmore than 4 mm. For connector strips having even larger cross-section of3.5 mm×0.3 mm, as they can be beneficially used for reducing serialresistances in the connector strips, excessive bowing of even more than9 mm may be observed. However, in standard solar module fabrication, abow of 2-3 mm is regarded to be the maximum allowable in mass productionto avoid yield loss due to breakage during ribbon stringing andlamination.

Accordingly, prior to the present invention, is was assumed that usingribbon-type connector strips for interconnecting rear contact solarcells was no option for solar module fabrication from large sized solarcells. This is particularly true as MWT solar cells typically provide2-3% higher electrical currents compared to standard solar cells withbusbars on the front side such that any reduction of the cross-sectionof the ribbon-type connector strips would result in even severe seriesresistance problems.

With the fabrication method as well as the solar module proposed herein,the above-mentioned problems may be solved or at least significantlyrelaxed. The proposed approach allows using simple linear ribbon-typeconnector strips for interconnecting rear contact solar cells. While theentire solar cell may be produced with a large size thereby enablingusing established high-through-put industrial solar cell processing, itis proposed to applying a specific asymmetrical pattern of soldering padarrangements on the rear side surface of a semiconductor substrate andseparating each rear contact solar cell into at least two cell portionsbefore arranging the cell portions in an alternating manner and in analternating orientation and finally soldering linear ribbon-typeconnector strips onto the aligned soldering pad arrangements ofneighboring cell portions. Thereby, both the number of connector stripsper cell portion as well as the length of connector strips may bereduced thereby reducing any bowing of the semiconductor substrate uponcooling-off after soldering the connector strips to the soldering padarrangements.

Furthermore, as the size of the cell portions is significantly smaller,preferably half the size of the non-separated rear contact solar cells,the electrical current produced by each cell portion is smaller than inentire rear contact solar cells. Accordingly, power losses due to serialresistance within the connector strips may be reduced by a factor of 4.

FIGS. 1 and 2 are top views onto rear surfaces of rear contact solarcells with a 2-busbar and 3-busbar design as they may be used forfabricating a solar module according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

A square semiconductor substrate 3 of an MWT rear contact solar cell 1has a size of 156 mm×156 mm. Such MWT solar cell 1 comprises emittercontacts not only on a front surface but emitter contacts are also leadthrough through-holes 5 to the rear surface of the semiconductorsubstrate 3. In small areas adjacent to these through-holes 5, solderingpads 9 are arranged on the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate3. Both the front side emitter contacts as well as the soldering pads 9contacting the emitter contacts 5 lead through the through-holes towardsthe rear side of the substrate 3 may be applied using e.g.screen-printing technologies and using e.g. silver-containingscreen-printing pastes.

The remainder of the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate 3 apartfrom the areas of the soldering pads 9 contacting the emitter contacts 5is covered with a base contact 7 and/or a back surface field layer(BSF). Both the base contacts 7 as well as the back surface field layermay be applied e.g. by screen-printing an aluminium-containing pasteonto the entire rear surface of the semiconductor substrate 3 except forthe regions of the emitter soldering pads 9. As an aluminium layer maynot be soldered, soldering pads 11 comprising a solderable material suchas a silver-aluminum compound are arranged on the base contacts 7locally.

Both the single soldering pad 9 contacting the emitter contacts 5 aswell as the multiple soldering pads 11 contacting the base contact 7form soldering pad arrangements 13, 15 having a linear geometry, i.e.extending along a straight line. Furthermore, as shown in the figures,the linear soldering pad arrangements 13, 15 may extend parallel to alongitudinal axis 17 running through the center of the semiconductorsubstrate 3.

The soldering pad arrangements 13, 15 are arranged asymmetrical withrespect to the longitudinal axis 17. In other words, when mirroring oneof the soldering pad arrangements 13, 15 at the longitudinal axis 17,there is no corresponding soldering pad arrangement 13, 15 at themirrored position but, to the contrary, there is a soldering padarrangement 15, 13 of the other type at this position.

When fabricating a solar module from a plurality of rear contact solarcells 1 as shown in FIG. 1 or 2, after processing the entire solar cell1 in its original large size and applying soldering pads 9, 11 at thedesired locations, each solar cell 1 is separated into two cell portions19, 21 along a line 23 perpendicular to the longitudinal axis 17 of thesemiconductor substrate 3. Preferably, the separating line 23 ispositioned at the middle of the semiconductor substrate 3 such that thetwo cell portions 19, 21 are halves of the original solar cell 1 andhave same sizes.

The solar cell 1 may be separated by first generating a linear trenchalong the separating line 23 using e.g. a laser. Such separating trenchmay not go through the entire thickness of the semiconductor substrate 3but may have a depth of e.g. between 10 and 100 μm. Subsequently, thesolar cell 1 may be broken along this trench wherein the trench servesas a predetermined breaking line.

While such separation process using a laser-scribed trench andsubsequently mechanically breaking the substrate 3 along this trenchappears to provide advantages when incorporated into an industrial scalefabrication procedure, other techniques for separating the solar cell 1such as sawing, etching, etc. may be applied.

After having separated the solar cell 1 into first and second cellportions 19, 21, these first and second cell portions are alternatelyarranged along a line as schematically shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. Therein,every first cell portion 19 is arranged in a first orientation and thesecond cell portions 21 arranged at opposite sides of the first cellportion 19 are arranged in an opposite orientation, i.e. rotated by180°.

Due to such alternating arrangement and orientation of first and secondcell portions 19, 21 and due to the specific asymmetrical design of thesoldering pad arrangements 13, 15 arranged on the emitter contacts 5 andthe base contacts 7, respectively, the cell portions 19, 21 may bearranged such that a soldering pad arrangement 13 of emitter contacts ona first cell portion 19 may be linearly aligned with a soldering padarrangement 15 of base contacts on a neighboring second cell portion 21,and vice versa, as shown in FIG. 3.

Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 4, linear ribbon-type connector strips 25may be arranged on top of the aligned soldering pad arrangements 13, 15of neighboring first and second cell portions 19, 21 and electricallyconnected thereto for example by a soldering procedure. The connectorstrip 25 may be a simple linear ribbon as used conventionally forinterconnecting solar cells having emitter contacts on a front side andbase contacts on a. rear side. The ribbons may have a highly conductivecopper core enclosed by a solderable material such as silver.

FIGS. 5 and 6 visualize electrical current flow densities within thebase on the rear side of a cell portion 17, 19.

As may be seen in FIGS. 1 and 2, the soldering pad arrangements 13 ofemitter contacts continuously extend from a first end arranged close toa first edge 27 of the semiconductor substrate 3 to a second end closeto a second edge 31 of the semiconductor substrate 3. However, thesoldering pad arrangement 13 does not reach directly to the first andsecond edges 27, 31 but the first and second ends of the soldering padarrangement 13 is spaced apart from these edges 27, 31 by a certaindistance thereby forming a gap 33 between the end of the soldering padarrangement 13 and the associated edge 27, 31. However, the solderingpad arrangement 13 extends from the first end continuously via a centerregion to the second end such that it crosses the separation line 23.

Accordingly, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, the soldering pad arrangement 13of the emitter contacts has one end thereof spaced apart from an upperfirst edge 23 by a gap 33, but reaches a lower opposite edge 29 of thecell portion 17, 19 directly, i.e. without any gap.

Such design of the emitter soldering pad arrangement 13 may have twoeffects. First, a connector strip 25 arranged on top of the emittersoldering pad arrangement 13 as shown in FIG. 4 has no risk of gettinginto electrical contact with portions of the base or base contact of therespective cell portion. Thus, there is no risk of short-circuiting.Second, electrical current generated within an area adjacent to theemitter soldering pad arrangement 13 where there are no base solderingpads 11 may flow through the gap 33 towards the base soldering padarrangement 15 as shown with the arrows 37 in FIG. 5. Accordingly, thereis no need of providing base soldering pad arrangements 15 on both sidesof an emitter soldering pad arrangement 13.

In order to further improve current collection within the base of thesolar cell, additional metal fingers 39 extending from a soldering padarrangement 15 of a base contact into an area 35 may be provided.Accordingly, these metal fingers 39 extend from the base soldering padarrangement 15 arranged on the right side of the continuous emittersoldering pad arrangement 13 via the gap 33 into the region 35 at theopposite left side of the continuous emitter soldering pad arrangement13, thereby shortening any current paths as visualized with the arrows41. The metal fingers 39 may have a significantly higher electricalconductivity than the base contact or the back surface field provided atthe rear surface of the semiconductor substrate 3.

Summarized, the proposed fabrication method and solar module enablescheap and simple cell interconnection using standard linear ribbon-typeconnector strips while minimizing any bowing of the semiconductorsubstrate 3 as well as minimizing series resistance losses. A keyfeature of embodiments of the present invention may be seen inseparating a large size rear contact solar cell 1 into portions 17, 19,e.g. by cutting into halves, and providing a specific asymmetricaldesign for soldering pad arrangements thereby enabling that resultingfirst and second cell portions 17, 19 may be arranged alternately andaligned with each other such that linear ribbon-type connector strips 25may be soldered onto associated soldering pad arrangements 13, 15.

It shall be noted that embodiments of the present invention aredescribed herein only with respect to the substantial features andprocessing steps. One skilled in the art realizes that, in a fabricationmethod, further processing steps may be added or some of the describedprocessing steps may be replaced by equivalent processing steps forfabricating the solar cell. Similarly, one skilled in the art realizesthat the proposed solar cell module may comprise further features andcomponents additional to the features described herein or as equivalentreplacements.

Finally, it should be noted that the term “comprising” does not excludeother elements or steps and the “a” or “an” does not exclude aplurality. Also elements described in association with differentembodiments may be combined. It should also be noted that referencesigns in the claims should not be construed as limiting the scope of theclaims.

LIST OF REFERENCE SIGNS

1 rear contact solar cell

3 semiconductor substrate

5 emitter contacts

7 base contacts

9 emitter soldering pad

11 base soldering pads

13 emitter soldering pad arrangement

15 base soldering pad arrangement

17 longitudinal axis

19 first cell portion

21 second cell portion

23 separation line

25 linear ribbon-type connector strip

27 first edge

29 second edge of cell portion

31 second edge of solar cell

33 gap

35 region without base soldering pad arrangement

37 current flow arrows

39 metal fingers

41 current flow arrows

1-6. (canceled)
 7. A solar module, comprising: a first cell portion on asemiconductor substrate, the first cell portion comprising a firstsoldering pad arrangement of emitter contacts and of base contacts; asecond cell portion on the semiconductor substrate, the second cellportion comprising a second soldering pad arrangement of emittercontacts and of base contacts, wherein the first soldering padarrangement and the second soldering pad arrangement are alignedasymmetrically with respect to an axis of a semiconductor substrate; thefirst cell portion separate from the second cell portion along a lineperpendicular to an axis of the semiconductor substrate; and the firstcell portion and the second cell portion positioned alternately along aline such that the second cell portion is arranged in an angularorientation with respect to the first cell portion and such that thefirst soldering pad arrangement of emitter contacts and of base contactsof the first cell portion is aligned with the second soldering padarrangement of base contacts and of emitter contacts of the second cellportion, respectively.
 8. The solar module of claim 7, furthercomprising electrically connecting the first cell portion and the secondcell portion by electrically connecting the base contacts of the firstcell portion to the emitter contacts of the second cell portion orconnecting the emitter contacts of the first cell portion to the basecontacts of the second cell portion.
 9. The solar module of claim 7,wherein, before separating a rear contact solar cell, the soldering padarrangement of an emitter contact continuously extends from a first endarranged close to a first edge of the semiconductors substrate via acentre region of the semiconductor substrate to a second end arrangedclose to a second edge of the semiconductors substrate, wherein thefirst end and the second end are spaced apart from the first edge andthe second edge, respectively, by between 2 and 48% of the distancebetween the first and second edges.
 10. The solar module of claim 7,wherein the rear contact solar cells are separated into first and secondcell portions by mechanically breaking the solar cell along a lineartrench.
 11. The solar module of claim 10, wherein the linear trench iscreated by laser scribing into the semiconductor substrate.
 12. Thesolar module of claim 10, wherein the linear trench is created byetching or sawing into the semiconductor substrate.